I give a brisk nod, not wanting to pull away from Gabriella. I’m afraid if I turn my back, she’ll vanish into the thin air.
“I’ll take good care of her. I promise.” Quinn’s small smile gives me a tad bit of reassurance, so I back away, letting Quinn take the wet robe off her. I hear it fall to the ground with a wet plop, and Quinn inhales a sharp breath. “Oh, you poor thing,” she says in horror.
I freeze my movements while turning the thermostat up. “What? What is it? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. She has little scars all over her body. Who knows what she has gone through?”
I close my eyes and count to ten while I take a deep breath. I have to keep my cool. Once Gabriella wakes up, I’ll get to know her all over again, and maybe she’ll feel comfortable telling me how she got the scars. It’s hard not to imagine the scenarios.
My brother whipping her, cutting her, putting cigarettes out on her—I have no idea. What I do know? I am terrified to find out because I’ll feel a massive amount of guilt for not getting to her sooner.
I open the cabinets and grab extra blankets, including the ones that are warmed, and grab a heating pad for the hell of it. She is beyond frozen right now, and anything will help. “Is she decent?” I ask, turning my chin to my shoulder to make sure I hear Quinn’s response.
“Yes, she is. She’s in a gown now. You can turn around.”
I spin around so fast, my feet almost get the best of me, and I nearly fall to the ground with my arms full of things that will keep Gabriella alive. Quinn hooks up the heart rate monitor, and the steady beep has me breathing easier. I lay the heating pad on her first and plug it in the wall, turning the dial to a medium temperature. Next, I lay the sheets over, then the green blanket, and pull a chair close to the side of the bed. I sit take her cold hand in mind, and rub my thumb over her knuckles.
“So, this is your meaning for revenge?” Quinn asks, taking a seat in the chair on the other side of the bed.
“In the flesh,” I say, and I bring Gabriella’s hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles. It is the first time I’ve ever kissed her, and even though her hands are ice cold, the touch of her skin against mine warms me from head to toe.
“You love her very much.”
“More than anything this world could offer me; it will never amount to what I feel for her.”
My capacity to hold anything else near and dear to my heart is impossible. Gabriella takes up every square inch of the organ inside my chest. Really, it is an unhealthy need I have for her. If she dies, I’ll die. It is as simple as that. I don’t want to live in a world where she doesn’t exist; the thought is too much to bear.
Gabriella doesn’t know how much power she holds over her me.
When it comes to her, I am irrevocably powerless.
Chapter Ten
GABRIELLA
There isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t hurt. The constant beeping draws me out of the darkness that clouds my mind. My lashes flutter open, and the bright lights scorch my eyes. I grunt softly and try to move around to readjust my position, but everything hurts too bad to try on my own.
The ceiling is different than the one I'm used to. This one is simpler, what a ceiling is supposed to look like, and I know by the smell of things I am in a hospital.
Which means they called Kendrick.
The beeping grows quick as I start to panic. Fuck the pain—I need to get out of here. I’m not going to be subjected to his cruelty. I force my eyes open and they water from the harsh light. When I sit up, my arm tugs against something, and I hiss. I look down to find an IV in the crook of my arm.
I’m alone in the room. There aren’t any other beds. Mine is the only one in here, and it doesn’t look like a typical hospital room. I have no idea where I am, but I have to get out of here before Kendrick comes back and punishes me. It will be a terrible punishment.
One filled with pitch black rooms for weeks, scraps of food, and only enough water to wet my tongue. He’ll lash my back with a belt, yelling at me, telling me how hates disobedient bitches. When he makes my back bleed, he goes off on a tangent about how I’m going to be presentable if I don’t know how to behave.
I have no idea what that means.
I have a sick feeling he is in some sort of gang or sick religion; I’m not sure. I know it isn't anything good.
Voices coming from down the hall has me laying back and faking sleep. I shut my eyes and wait for Kendrick.
“She’ll wake up,” one of Kendrick’s goonies reassures him.
“She has to.”
My eyes fly open when the voice I expect to hear isn’t there. It’s better, deeper, a bit broken and sad. I sit up in the bed, forgetting about the pain to see if I’m where I think I am. Maybe I am dead. This is Heaven. Sebastian has been my heaven for so long, he is the only brightness in my never-ending dark days.
My heart pounds, crashing against my chest, a wild freight train on the loose. The door opens. The heart rate monitor speeds up. I wait to see his face. I clutch the blanket in my fists, tears gathering in my eyes as a sob breaks from me before he enters the room.
But once he does … oh, god, once he does, and I see his face, I can’t hold back anymore. The torment rips from my chest, and I cup my hands over my mouth and weep when Sebastian fills the doorway. He pauses, staring at me with wide eyes, like he can’t believe what he us seeing.
“What’s the hold up?” someone asks behind him and pushes him forward.
Sebastian catches himself on the end of the bed, and I gasp, afraid he’s hurt himself.
“Oh, I’ll give you guys some alone time.” The stranger turns around and closes the door behind him, leaving me alone with a man who I thought would forever be a distant memory that would eventually fade.
There is nothing worse, living day after day and only remembering certain things about someone. The more time that passes, the more things I can’t conjure up, like how he really looked. I knew he was handsome, but I forgot how sharp his jaw is, how intense his eyes are, and how thick his hair is.
His hand moves on the bed, inching closer to me. “Gabriella?”
“Sebastian?”
His eyes shine like glass as he hurries to my side and cups my face with his hands. His thumbs rub along my cheekbones, soft and tender, a gentle touch I haven’t felt in an awfully long time. My eyes close as a tear slips free from my lashes, and instead of punishing me for crying, he wipes my tears away.
“It’s really you,” I sob, lifting a hand over his, needing to be closer. “It’s really you.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he says, pulling me to his chest as he wraps his strong arms around me, holding me as if I’m about to fly away or disappear. He kisses the top of my head and runs his fingers down my back. “I never fucking thought I’d see you again, baby. God, when Owen brought you to me, you weren’t breathing. I did, Gabriella. I fucking died seeing you like that.” He pulls away and presses his chin against his chest, staring those beautiful eyes into mine. Sebastian bites his lips together, and his eyes turn from glassy to swimming with tears. He leans his forehead against mine, and his lips whisper over mine, not in a kiss, but a heated promise, a gesture that shows control.